Chapter 67 I had lost her

Chapter 67 I had lost her
Jeremy's POV

How did I loose her?

Just like that. One second her lantern was ahead of me. Small and warm in the dark. The next second it was gone. Like the night had swallowed her whole.

I stopped. Looked both ways.

Nothing.

No movement. No sound. No light.

I stood there for a moment feeling like the biggest fool in Lakewood.

How does a person just vanish on a straight road.

I looked around again.

Then I noticed it.

A door. Old. Wooden. Set back slightly into the stone wall at my left. The kind of door you would walk past a hundred times and never look at twice.

But Margaret's eyes had been on it. I remembered now. The whole time she was walking down this road her head kept turning slightly. Toward this end. Toward this building.

I pushed the door open and went in.

Dark inside. Darker than the road. The kind of dark that meant nobody had lit a lamp in a while.

"Hello?" My voice came out and disappeared into the room.

Nothing.

"Hello." Louder this time.

Still nothing.

I moved further in. Let my eyes adjust. Looked around.

Small room. Old furniture. A chair. A table. A cold fireplace.

Empty.

Not just empty. Completely empty. Like nobody had been here in hours.

"Hi." I tried again. Feeling increasingly stupid. "Is anyone here?"

Silence answered me.

I stood in the middle of the cold room for a long moment.

Then I walked back out.

Stood on the road.

Looked both ways one more time.

Nothing. Nobody. Just the dark and the quiet and the distant sound of the pack settling into the night.

I had lost her.

She had slipped me somehow. On a straight road with nowhere to go she had simply ceased to exist.

I turned and walked back toward the pack house.

Something was very wrong with Lady Margaret.

And I was going to find out what.

~Zoe's POV~
Benjamin and I stood there in silence for awhile without saying a single thing. Just standing there in the shadow with that smile of his like he was enjoying every second of my discomfort.

"Wait for awhile." He said finally. "Then you move. Give him enough road."

I said nothing. Just watched the direction Jeremy had gone until I was sure his footsteps had completely faded.

"Let me walk you." Benjamin said.

"No." I said immediately.

He raised an eyebrow.

"I don't need you to walk me." I said. "I know where I'm going and it's nowhere strange. I'll be fine."

He looked at me for a moment. Those sharp eyes doing what they always did. Measuring. Calculating.

"Fine." He said simply. Stepped back. "But Zoe."

I turned.

"Whatever you are looking for tonight." He said quietly. "I hope it's not something better left in the dark"

I held his gaze for one second.

Then I turned and walked.

The door was old. Heavy. It moved slowly when I pushed it.

I stepped inside.

Dark. Warm. The smell of dried herbs and something older underneath it. The smell of a place that had held many years inside its walls.

And then I saw her.

Sitting in the chair by the cold fireplace. Wrapped in her brown shawl. White hair loose around her shoulders. Her hands folded in her lap.

Looking tired.

The way people look when they have been waiting a very long time and aren't sure anymore if what they are waiting for is actually coming.

But her eyes found me the moment I stepped through the door.

And they changed.

Those sharp eyes. The ones that had found me across market paths and herb stalls and garden edges. The ones that had known me every single time before I was ready to be known.

They filled up.

Just like that.

"Can I help you ." She whispered..

I stood in the doorway. Lantern in my hand. Heart loud in my chest.